When Lee Costic approached a real-estate agent about selling his parents’ house in Virginia Beach’s Thalia neighborhood last fall, he thought it’d take months to sell.
He had some statistics working against him: The selling time for a single-family home is more than eight months in South Hampton Roads; 11 other houses were for sale in Thalia; and winter is typically a slow time to move real estate.
Costic dug in for the long haul.
What transpired mere days after the house went on the market amazed Costic and busted those stats.
In less than a week in November, the house received multiple offers and eventually sold for $5,000 above asking price.
Those in the real-estate industry say it’s a buyer’s market. Sellers must take certain steps to make their house competitive with others on the market, especially when competing against listings in their own neighborhood.
The necessities? The right price and a move-in-ready appearance.
“Pricing and preparation are key,” said Hope Roots, a Realtor with Nancy Chandler Associates.
“You have to be competitive, because buyers are going to look at all” the houses in their price range, Sherri Thaxton, a Realtor with Century 21 Nachman Realty, said recently as she showed a 2,100-square-foot house in West Park View in Portsmouth with an above-ground pool, hot tub and arbor-like deck.
As a comparison, she asked: Why go to Macy’s when you can buy the same suit for less at Ross?
The seller’s home on Bain Street that Thaxton lists was competing in late December with nine other houses off London Boulevard. To get the Colonial-style home market ready, Thaxton had wall colors toned down, clutter removed from rooms and blinds left open to let the sun shine in.
The seller originally wanted to list it for $219,000, on the high end for the neighborhood. Thaxton convinced her to drop it to $190,000.
“Pricing is still the key,” she said.
For Dayla Brooks, an agent with The Real Estate Group, she saw this type of market – a beauty contest and price war at the same time – coming years back.
She remembers telling a local news station during a story interview, “ … there are going to be multiple houses in your price point, if not in your direct neighborhood; you have to make the buyer choose yours.”
Added Brooks, whose average selling time for a house in 2011 was 16 days from list to contract, “Buyers buy on emotion. Sell the lifestyle of the person you think will buy the home, and they will.”
Want to sell romance? Put a tray on the bed with wine glasses, she said. Leisure time? A cup of coffee on the counter with a newspaper.
Brooks works closely with home-stager Kimberly Cash of Tidewater Home Staging. Both know the importance of making a house move-in ready.
For Costic, that meant trusting Brooks and Cash. Because Costic lives in Richmond and runs his own business, it was hard for him to come back and forth to try to sell and stage the house. Brooks and Cash worked with him by phone.
Brooks said when she first walked into the home on Rundel Lane, it took her back at least 30 years. Royce and Lu Costic lived in the house for 46 years before moving to Georgia to be closer to their daughter.
During that time they had done little to upgrade the home, Costic said.
“We got stuff out of there, repainted, recovered furniture, pulled up carpet, and painted and replaced light fixtures,” Brooks said. She and Cash also had to “stage to the highest level to distract from the pink tile” in one of the bathrooms.
Costic was blown away by five offers in five days.
He was also blown away with the before and after photos.
“I literally thought they had sent me the wrong pictures,” he said. “It’s really stunning to see the pictures.”
Costic estimates he spent $3,000 transforming his parents’ home and got $5,000 above asking price.
“I was interested in buying the house, it looked so nice,” he said, laughing.
But agents and home stagers say that not all homeowners are willing to do whatever it takes to sell the house.
The homeowner has to be willing to go the extra mile, spend a little money if necessary, and listen to their agent to get the house ready. If they buck the advice, the house won’t sell, they say.
Sara A. Steele with Nancy Chandler Associates used an example of neighbors who both met with Realtors together about selling their homes in a particular neighborhood. One went with advice to lower his price. That house sold quickly. The other owner dug in his heels until he realized he had to lower the price to sell, Steele said.
For home-stager and redesigner Jennifer Farlin, owner of Bella Home Staging, working with a Realtor and/or home stager, and taking photos that represent the house well online, will sell a house.
Typically, Farlin said, three things need to be in place for a house to sell quickly in this market: Good location, price and staging, “at minimum,” she said, “move the Komodo dragon out of the living room.”
She likens keeping a house cluttered and dirty during the selling phase to going to a job interview in your pajamas.
“You have 6 seconds to grab the buyer’s attention,” Farlin said. “They want to like your house; they want the house search to be over; they are looking for reasons to like your house.”
If they pull up to a house whose front yard is boring or overgrown and neglected, you’ve already lost them, she said.
Next, when they walk over the threshold, it’s important what they see just inside the door, she said.
After that, Farlin said, the kitchen is important; the main areas opening to the kitchen are important; the master bathroom is important, and, “yes, everything in between needs to be well-lit, airy, free of clutter, clean and not smell like a Kimono dragon.”
She added: “I talk to more people selling who are fixated on the caulking in the guest upstairs bathroom, or whether their deck should be cedar-colored or mahogany, and completely blow off the fact that their house is dated ’70s and smells like smoke.”
Getting a wide-angle lens to take photos is also important, Farlin said.
A large number of buyers are looking online first to see the houses that they want to visit with an agent, Farlin said.
“If the online pictures don’t look good, they will put your house to the bottom of the pile.”
Toni Guagenti, tguagenti@cox.net
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